It started when I was learning code as a teenager and just stuck. I don't code much anymore, as I'm more of a hands-on guy these days, but I suppose it's habit now.
There are vast differences between different types of gaming. You have MMOs, which generally require a dedicated computer and not a massive amount of processing or graphical power. Modern FPSs such as the Crysis series are extremely taxing, and therefore more likely to be played on a system that costs more from a manufacturer/distributor or was custom-built by the user. Then there are your Call of Duty style games which are FAR more popular on consoles simply because the buy-in and hookup is easier than PC-side -- you don't need TeamSpeak, matchmaking clients, dedicated servers, etc., to have a fun time. You only need to "plug and play" and hop online; the game itself will cost you $10 or 20 more than its non-console counterpart, but the hardware on which its running is at most half the price of a good gaming rig...and you probably already own an HDTV so that's not extra cost out of your pocket just to play.
Then we consider mobile or tablet gaming. Angry Birds and Words With Friends don't need all that real-estate, even though an iPhone or iPad (or equivalent device) may cost as much or more than a console. You play them anywhere, any time...and that's great for someone who can't or won't commit the time to a 45 minute MOBA match, a 2+ hour MMO raid, or dozens of hours on a single-player RPG or hack-and-slasher.
The TLDR is this: whether consoles have hit their "high point" and are on the decline is irrelevant. They're still going to be around because they are geared toward a different type of gamer than many other platforms. They'll change shapes, sizes, capacities and functions...but they'll continue to exist in one form or another.
I've always preferred to use tabs over spaces for indentation, 2 breaks in between major sections or functions, and clearly named vars or functions. The kind of code most people can drop into and say "Oh, I see where this is going" and immediately begin to understand and therefore modify.
I can't stand opening up any type of code, even web pages, and finding ugly difficult-to-follow lines which seemingly make no sense. Then again, it's all a matter of preference and perspective, isn't it?
The point is that you simply don't know whether or not someone is going to cross that threshold from just a beating to severe bodily harm and/or death.
If you genuinely fear for your life, would it not make sense to pull the trigger? It may be cliche, but I'd rather "be tried by 12 than carried by 6"...YMMV.
I agree, there are inconsistencies. I guarantee I'd have fired more than one round if I were in that scenario...but then again being a "reasonable person" I wouldn't have been pursuing an unknown entity at night.
I haven't seen the autopsy data indicating levels of GSR, type of bullet, trajectory, estimated distance, etc...so I couldn't say for sure; that's something the trial will bring to light. There are far different patterns of ballistic reaction at zero distance vs. arms length or anything further. Knuckle bruising is a great point. Only if he'd been training on a heavy bag or some other practice would he not develop bruises or abrasions from punches to someone's head, but that doesn't rule out grabbing the face/head and smashing it down.
I thought of the same possibility; perhaps Zimmerman smacked his own head on the concrete or otherwise damaged himself to make it seem plausible. Considering the guy on the other end of the muzzle is dead, we may never know whether that is true or not. It is 100% speculation, and is therefore thrown out the window without witnesses or other proof. The police video does show something on Zimmerman's head, though it is not very clear from the angle or lighting. A video released later shows a long laceration which hadn't fully healed as Zimmerman walked police through the crime scene.
Nonetheless, I still maintain that Murder Two is going to be extremely difficult to prosecute and stick in this case. The prosecution will need to be spot-on with their arguments and the defense will need to be bumbling and incompetent to lose that fight.
I think everyone can agree that Zimmerman probably should not have pursued Martin any further once he called in the local authorities. He may have been stalking, he may have been simply trying to keep an eye on the kid to make sure he didn't do anything in that neighborhood which was illegal or wrong - the court case will bring that portion to light, if the prosecution and defense are on the ball.
However the altercation started, it quickly went one-sided (as most altercations do) and ended up with the defendant using deadly force to stop his attacker. He was on his back, he'd had a large laceration to the back of his head from falling and/or being pounded on the concrete. Those are two things which if taken alone, would already warrant the use of escalated force.
The rule is that you escalate force as necessary to thwart the opposite force, using the means available to you. If you possess pepper spray, a truncheon, and a sidearm then your escalation of force is pretty obvious, as it would be in the case of an everyday law enforcement officer. If all you have is a pistol, then you go from fists to lethal force instantly when a certain threshold is crossed by the assailant. Since you can't be sure that the guy who smashed your skull into the concrete and is mounted on top of you will stop at any point, you pull the trigger and keep pulling until you're out of ammo or the threat is neutralized.
Personally, I think the prosecution overcharged this case. Murder Two can be extremely difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt when there multiple eye witnesses; on a dark/rainy night with little direct testimony it may be nearly impossible . If they'd really wanted a shot at putting Zimmerman behind bars, they'd have gone for manslaughter.
Can you bind your commands however you want in Torchlight 2? If not, I will stick with D3.
Yes.
You can also use modifiers such as shift, alt, etc. on your key bindings.
TL2, honestly, has the feel and action which I had hoped D3 would. YMMV, but I really think the game as a whole is far superior. The only drawback is that they don't use Steamworks to for multiplayer internet games, they use Runic's own matchmaking network which is very similar to the old Half-Life mm via Won.net.
Unfortunately, the trend of USG full and sub-departments completely shooting themselves in the foot is not uncommon.
Department of Energy makes us more foreign-energy dependent.
TSA makes airports less secure than ever, while also more inconvenient and congested than ever.
DEA is attempting to enforce the unenforceable. People want to get high - they're gonna get high!
BATFE/DOJ is running guns to Mexican cartels and getting Mexicans and Americans killed in the process.
Basically, if you need a task done as inefficiently and back-assward as possible: hire the gov't!
CounterStrike, which was eventually bought out by Valve, was its own mod for Half-Life. A couple of guys with some basic modding/programming abilities turned that free mod into a worldwide distribution which sold millions of copies.
I agree that the CoD, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect titles seem to be the only thing selling on an absolutely massive scale. However, excellent companies such as Trendy Entertainment have made games like their Dungeon Defenders. At around a million copies on multiple platforms, I'd say they're hardly something which "nobody wants to play". Personally, I'd rather put time and/or money into Dungeon Defenders or similarly fun indie games than any of those AAA titles. I've purchased my share of games from the lowliest developers to the biggest companies over the years, and the guys up at the top all have one major thing in common: overhype and letdown.
From a completely capitalist point of view: whatever it takes to succeed.
But in all seriousness, a good game may take a little bit of time but it will ultimately sell itself. Minecraft, Angry Birds, and many others are only recent examples of successes. Community, whether via internet or word-of-mouth, is one of the best tools for free advertisement.
Partially correct. Nintendo is also a huge corporation with over a hundred years of business. They develop and produce their own hardware and software, as well as license out to 3rd parties for massive amounts of money. At one point, there may have been considered "indie", but not any longer.
Regardless of their levels of experience, it takes money to make money. Veteran industry people usually have a nice nest egg to utilize, whereas someone just breaking into the industry may not have that luxury.
I think "indie" merely refers to the practice of a single company both producing and publishing their game. Whether they're alumni of Blizz/Activision/EA/Ubisoft or they've never worked on any gaming projects before, the only difference may be the amount of capital invested in the project.
You lucked out, then. I've driven around Fairfax, Arlington and PG counties as well as DC today. I haven't seen a major road without some kind of debris blocking it, nor an area which has 100% power restored at this point.
This was a bad storm, but could certainly have been far worse. Even still, the grocers and stores are out of ice and people are swarming out of their homes like rats abandoning ship in some areas. These same people would be fucked if the S really HTF.
If you notice the trend in your given example, those who prepared and planned ahead had firearms prior to any conflict arising. The "terrified morons" were the ones who most likely realized that the SHTF and they needed to secure arms. While the prepared individuals obviously had not foreseen and accordingly planned for this type of activity, they are normally not the kind of persons to "shoot first and think later."
The American legally-owning gun community is extremely prolific, varying in cultural and moral beliefs, and generally moderately prepared for crisis when compared against our non-gun-toting compatriots. Most of us are smarter than your average citizen and we tend to keep track of political and social situations which may affect us. We abide by gun laws, as stupid as they may be when put into place, until we can legally overturn them or otherwise make them obsolete. The unfortunate side of these truths is that you will not see these facts displayed on the internet, spoken by politicians, written in news articles or in the mainstream media. You will only hear about cases like "Operation Gunrunner", etc., where things are illegally trafficked, or other cases where violence is done using mostly stolen or black-market arms.
Nearly 1/3 of all States has banned the death penalty, with several more simply not practicing it at all. Out of those which allow it, all of them utilize the lethal injection method, which is widely seen as the most humane form of death. Some provision is allowed for other methods, but they are rarely-if-ever used.
Merely rhetorical questions: Do you believe the most vile of criminals such as pedophiles, murderers and rapists can honestly meet justice with a life sentence? Should people who are serving sentences which are guaranteed to extend well past their natural life span be supported on taxpayer money?
Aside from military experience, I've never needed to use my firearms in a defense capacity. I genuinely hope that I never have to use a firearm against another human, but I prepare for the day which I may. It is the absolute last resort, when there is no way out of the situation but deadly force...and once you reach that point you either kill or get killed.
There's a quote we have which puts it into perspective, perhaps: It is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6. Which would you prefer?
Apparently shooting people is merely an American hobby now? That's a silly notion. There are riots, civil wars, and other violent movements using all kinds of small arms on every inhabited continent on the planet; quite often (if not always) simultaneously.
I wholeheartedly agree. I try to select a more difficult setting when I play games, from the start -- usually the hardest available since often the top-tier is unlockable nowadays.
KoA was just ridiculously easy. My guy has 1800 armor, ~50% elemental resists, and enough regeneration to shrug off nearly every attack in the game. It's simply not a challenge! Very fun with smooth combat? Sure. But there is simply no replay value in the sense of "I wonder if I can beat this game on the highest difficulty", because there is no difficulty to begin with.
The End User License Agreement clearly states that we have not purchased a copy of the game, but a rather license to use it. While I disagree with their choice of legalese, I'm still having a ton of fun hacking & slashing with my buddies.
They seem fairly similar to me, from what little I've seen. Other than the actual input of some things being better/worse given a preference for controller vs. mouse/keyboard, the gameplay is nearly identical.
Yet DICE still can't conjure up a functional, good-looking user interface for all of their PC prowess. I still can't believe you don't have the option to cancel out from a server before the game loads in; you have to fully wait for the map to load, hope you haven't gotten in right as the map is changing, and THEN back out of your game to search for a different server or otherwise go about your business. They still don't bother making a functional server list which can be filtered anywhere near as well as the now-14-year-old Half Life engine does...and that is piss-poor.
It's the little shit like that which keeps me from purchasing titles like Battlefield and Call of Duty. Petty? Perhaps. But just because a studio has upped the graphics and included a dozen new weapons and perks, doesn't make it a better, more well-polished game.
I agree that it takes more than just an idea to shoot from the hip. That being said, it is pretty darn easy to do -- I find that with bird- or buckshot I can reliably hit targets out 10-15 yards, which is far longer than any possible interior line of sight in my home.
I'm not your average person; I've got tens of thousands of rounds from all sorts of firearms over a number of years. I consider it not only enjoyable to shoot, but a responsibility to be proficient and ready to defend myself or others should situations arise.
IMO a 12-gauge pump-action with an 18" or 20" barrel and somewhere between OO- and 4-gauge shot would be prime for home defense. Easy as hell to use, cheap for practice and purchase, extremely reliable, non-overpenetrating, and any home intruders are guaranteed to know the sound of a shotgun racking (and subsequently won't want to engage in a gunfight if they know they are on the business-end of a shotgun). I'm unconcerned about how hard the kick is to your shoulder -- even my 5'3 wife can handle 12ga recoil.
I don't consider firearms deterrents, because I don't display them for everyone in the world to see. They are for defense of life and limb; I'd rather have things stolen while I'm not home than risk a direct confrontation with a thief or thieves...but even better if they never want to steal from my home in the first place, because there are better, softer targets elsewhere.
I'm in a similar boat. Former-Army, shot at but never had a chance to shoot back (not necessarily a complaint), grew up playing the types of games which others claim make people violent.
I believe we ought to sweat & bleed in training to avoid it on the battlefield. Better to take some lumps at home doing combat maneuvers rather than fucking it up in theater and getting yourself or others killed. The "peace through superior firepower" motto sounds a bit like war-trumpeting, but it is generally how I view foreign policy and conflicts. Don't look for a fight, but be damned sure you're ready for one at a moment's notice and always have better training & equipment than your adversaries.
I'm not a violent person at all. I'd go out of my way to avoid a physical altercation, but if something is inevitable or already going down, then I'll bring as much force as necessary to end it as quickly as possible. If that means lethal force or simply restraining someone, then whatever it takes.
Personally, I've found the answer to hairyfeet's question is actually the reverse. I've found that shooting has made me a better gamer where FPSes are concerned. As an example, pulling up the 1911 iron sights in Modern Warfare feels extremely familiar; I own a similar 1911 so it is natural. I also have a better understanding of strategy and tactics, "trigger control" even if it is translated to a mouse-click, cover and maneuvering, etc.
So... given they know that violent media is the cause, they then study it "scientifically", and jump up an down when they produce results that -- lo and behold -- validate their preconceptions.
Indeed. If you look for something hard enough, you're bound to find it.
Slashdot Mirror
It started when I was learning code as a teenager and just stuck. I don't code much anymore, as I'm more of a hands-on guy these days, but I suppose it's habit now.
There are vast differences between different types of gaming. You have MMOs, which generally require a dedicated computer and not a massive amount of processing or graphical power. Modern FPSs such as the Crysis series are extremely taxing, and therefore more likely to be played on a system that costs more from a manufacturer/distributor or was custom-built by the user.
Then there are your Call of Duty style games which are FAR more popular on consoles simply because the buy-in and hookup is easier than PC-side -- you don't need TeamSpeak, matchmaking clients, dedicated servers, etc., to have a fun time. You only need to "plug and play" and hop online; the game itself will cost you $10 or 20 more than its non-console counterpart, but the hardware on which its running is at most half the price of a good gaming rig...and you probably already own an HDTV so that's not extra cost out of your pocket just to play.
Then we consider mobile or tablet gaming. Angry Birds and Words With Friends don't need all that real-estate, even though an iPhone or iPad (or equivalent device) may cost as much or more than a console. You play them anywhere, any time...and that's great for someone who can't or won't commit the time to a 45 minute MOBA match, a 2+ hour MMO raid, or dozens of hours on a single-player RPG or hack-and-slasher.
The TLDR is this: whether consoles have hit their "high point" and are on the decline is irrelevant. They're still going to be around because they are geared toward a different type of gamer than many other platforms. They'll change shapes, sizes, capacities and functions...but they'll continue to exist in one form or another.
I've always preferred to use tabs over spaces for indentation, 2 breaks in between major sections or functions, and clearly named vars or functions. The kind of code most people can drop into and say "Oh, I see where this is going" and immediately begin to understand and therefore modify.
I can't stand opening up any type of code, even web pages, and finding ugly difficult-to-follow lines which seemingly make no sense. Then again, it's all a matter of preference and perspective, isn't it?
The point is that you simply don't know whether or not someone is going to cross that threshold from just a beating to severe bodily harm and/or death.
If you genuinely fear for your life, would it not make sense to pull the trigger? It may be cliche, but I'd rather "be tried by 12 than carried by 6"...YMMV.
I agree, there are inconsistencies. I guarantee I'd have fired more than one round if I were in that scenario...but then again being a "reasonable person" I wouldn't have been pursuing an unknown entity at night.
I haven't seen the autopsy data indicating levels of GSR, type of bullet, trajectory, estimated distance, etc...so I couldn't say for sure; that's something the trial will bring to light. There are far different patterns of ballistic reaction at zero distance vs. arms length or anything further. Knuckle bruising is a great point. Only if he'd been training on a heavy bag or some other practice would he not develop bruises or abrasions from punches to someone's head, but that doesn't rule out grabbing the face/head and smashing it down.
I thought of the same possibility; perhaps Zimmerman smacked his own head on the concrete or otherwise damaged himself to make it seem plausible. Considering the guy on the other end of the muzzle is dead, we may never know whether that is true or not. It is 100% speculation, and is therefore thrown out the window without witnesses or other proof. The police video does show something on Zimmerman's head, though it is not very clear from the angle or lighting. A video released later shows a long laceration which hadn't fully healed as Zimmerman walked police through the crime scene.
Nonetheless, I still maintain that Murder Two is going to be extremely difficult to prosecute and stick in this case. The prosecution will need to be spot-on with their arguments and the defense will need to be bumbling and incompetent to lose that fight.
I think everyone can agree that Zimmerman probably should not have pursued Martin any further once he called in the local authorities. He may have been stalking, he may have been simply trying to keep an eye on the kid to make sure he didn't do anything in that neighborhood which was illegal or wrong - the court case will bring that portion to light, if the prosecution and defense are on the ball.
However the altercation started, it quickly went one-sided (as most altercations do) and ended up with the defendant using deadly force to stop his attacker. He was on his back, he'd had a large laceration to the back of his head from falling and/or being pounded on the concrete. Those are two things which if taken alone, would already warrant the use of escalated force.
The rule is that you escalate force as necessary to thwart the opposite force, using the means available to you. If you possess pepper spray, a truncheon, and a sidearm then your escalation of force is pretty obvious, as it would be in the case of an everyday law enforcement officer. If all you have is a pistol, then you go from fists to lethal force instantly when a certain threshold is crossed by the assailant. Since you can't be sure that the guy who smashed your skull into the concrete and is mounted on top of you will stop at any point, you pull the trigger and keep pulling until you're out of ammo or the threat is neutralized.
Personally, I think the prosecution overcharged this case. Murder Two can be extremely difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt when there multiple eye witnesses; on a dark/rainy night with little direct testimony it may be nearly impossible . If they'd really wanted a shot at putting Zimmerman behind bars, they'd have gone for manslaughter.
Can you bind your commands however you want in Torchlight 2? If not, I will stick with D3.
Yes.
You can also use modifiers such as shift, alt, etc. on your key bindings.
TL2, honestly, has the feel and action which I had hoped D3 would. YMMV, but I really think the game as a whole is far superior. The only drawback is that they don't use Steamworks to for multiplayer internet games, they use Runic's own matchmaking network which is very similar to the old Half-Life mm via Won.net.
Your FIL sounds like a cool dude. We should go hang out, go mudding, shoot guns and smoke cigars (cigarettes are shit) some day.
Unfortunately, the trend of USG full and sub-departments completely shooting themselves in the foot is not uncommon.
Department of Energy makes us more foreign-energy dependent.
TSA makes airports less secure than ever, while also more inconvenient and congested than ever.
DEA is attempting to enforce the unenforceable. People want to get high - they're gonna get high! BATFE/DOJ is running guns to Mexican cartels and getting Mexicans and Americans killed in the process.
Basically, if you need a task done as inefficiently and back-assward as possible: hire the gov't!
CounterStrike, which was eventually bought out by Valve, was its own mod for Half-Life. A couple of guys with some basic modding/programming abilities turned that free mod into a worldwide distribution which sold millions of copies.
I agree that the CoD, Battlefield, Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect titles seem to be the only thing selling on an absolutely massive scale. However, excellent companies such as Trendy Entertainment have made games like their Dungeon Defenders. At around a million copies on multiple platforms, I'd say they're hardly something which "nobody wants to play". Personally, I'd rather put time and/or money into Dungeon Defenders or similarly fun indie games than any of those AAA titles. I've purchased my share of games from the lowliest developers to the biggest companies over the years, and the guys up at the top all have one major thing in common: overhype and letdown.
From a completely capitalist point of view: whatever it takes to succeed.
But in all seriousness, a good game may take a little bit of time but it will ultimately sell itself. Minecraft, Angry Birds, and many others are only recent examples of successes. Community, whether via internet or word-of-mouth, is one of the best tools for free advertisement.
Partially correct. Nintendo is also a huge corporation with over a hundred years of business. They develop and produce their own hardware and software, as well as license out to 3rd parties for massive amounts of money. At one point, there may have been considered "indie", but not any longer.
Regardless of their levels of experience, it takes money to make money. Veteran industry people usually have a nice nest egg to utilize, whereas someone just breaking into the industry may not have that luxury.
I see you've played MGS4!
Fantastic game, but holy SHIT it wasted a lot of time with cutscenes...
I think "indie" merely refers to the practice of a single company both producing and publishing their game. Whether they're alumni of Blizz/Activision/EA/Ubisoft or they've never worked on any gaming projects before, the only difference may be the amount of capital invested in the project.
That's my $.02, but YMMV.
You lucked out, then. I've driven around Fairfax, Arlington and PG counties as well as DC today. I haven't seen a major road without some kind of debris blocking it, nor an area which has 100% power restored at this point.
This was a bad storm, but could certainly have been far worse. Even still, the grocers and stores are out of ice and people are swarming out of their homes like rats abandoning ship in some areas. These same people would be fucked if the S really HTF.
If you notice the trend in your given example, those who prepared and planned ahead had firearms prior to any conflict arising. The "terrified morons" were the ones who most likely realized that the SHTF and they needed to secure arms. While the prepared individuals obviously had not foreseen and accordingly planned for this type of activity, they are normally not the kind of persons to "shoot first and think later."
The American legally-owning gun community is extremely prolific, varying in cultural and moral beliefs, and generally moderately prepared for crisis when compared against our non-gun-toting compatriots. Most of us are smarter than your average citizen and we tend to keep track of political and social situations which may affect us. We abide by gun laws, as stupid as they may be when put into place, until we can legally overturn them or otherwise make them obsolete. The unfortunate side of these truths is that you will not see these facts displayed on the internet, spoken by politicians, written in news articles or in the mainstream media. You will only hear about cases like "Operation Gunrunner", etc., where things are illegally trafficked, or other cases where violence is done using mostly stolen or black-market arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States#States_without_capital_punishment
Nearly 1/3 of all States has banned the death penalty, with several more simply not practicing it at all. Out of those which allow it, all of them utilize the lethal injection method, which is widely seen as the most humane form of death. Some provision is allowed for other methods, but they are rarely-if-ever used.
Merely rhetorical questions: Do you believe the most vile of criminals such as pedophiles, murderers and rapists can honestly meet justice with a life sentence? Should people who are serving sentences which are guaranteed to extend well past their natural life span be supported on taxpayer money?
Aside from military experience, I've never needed to use my firearms in a defense capacity. I genuinely hope that I never have to use a firearm against another human, but I prepare for the day which I may. It is the absolute last resort, when there is no way out of the situation but deadly force...and once you reach that point you either kill or get killed.
There's a quote we have which puts it into perspective, perhaps: It is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6. Which would you prefer?
Apparently shooting people is merely an American hobby now? That's a silly notion. There are riots, civil wars, and other violent movements using all kinds of small arms on every inhabited continent on the planet; quite often (if not always) simultaneously.
I wholeheartedly agree. I try to select a more difficult setting when I play games, from the start -- usually the hardest available since often the top-tier is unlockable nowadays.
KoA was just ridiculously easy. My guy has 1800 armor, ~50% elemental resists, and enough regeneration to shrug off nearly every attack in the game. It's simply not a challenge! Very fun with smooth combat? Sure. But there is simply no replay value in the sense of "I wonder if I can beat this game on the highest difficulty", because there is no difficulty to begin with.
The End User License Agreement clearly states that we have not purchased a copy of the game, but a rather license to use it. While I disagree with their choice of legalese, I'm still having a ton of fun hacking & slashing with my buddies.
They seem fairly similar to me, from what little I've seen. Other than the actual input of some things being better/worse given a preference for controller vs. mouse/keyboard, the gameplay is nearly identical.
Yet DICE still can't conjure up a functional, good-looking user interface for all of their PC prowess. I still can't believe you don't have the option to cancel out from a server before the game loads in; you have to fully wait for the map to load, hope you haven't gotten in right as the map is changing, and THEN back out of your game to search for a different server or otherwise go about your business. They still don't bother making a functional server list which can be filtered anywhere near as well as the now-14-year-old Half Life engine does...and that is piss-poor.
It's the little shit like that which keeps me from purchasing titles like Battlefield and Call of Duty. Petty? Perhaps. But just because a studio has upped the graphics and included a dozen new weapons and perks, doesn't make it a better, more well-polished game.
And the glow-in-the-dark Sunglasses worn by douchebags like Kanye West (and originally popularized in the 80's) are a joke in themselves.
I agree that it takes more than just an idea to shoot from the hip. That being said, it is pretty darn easy to do -- I find that with bird- or buckshot I can reliably hit targets out 10-15 yards, which is far longer than any possible interior line of sight in my home.
I'm not your average person; I've got tens of thousands of rounds from all sorts of firearms over a number of years. I consider it not only enjoyable to shoot, but a responsibility to be proficient and ready to defend myself or others should situations arise.
IMO a 12-gauge pump-action with an 18" or 20" barrel and somewhere between OO- and 4-gauge shot would be prime for home defense. Easy as hell to use, cheap for practice and purchase, extremely reliable, non-overpenetrating, and any home intruders are guaranteed to know the sound of a shotgun racking (and subsequently won't want to engage in a gunfight if they know they are on the business-end of a shotgun). I'm unconcerned about how hard the kick is to your shoulder -- even my 5'3 wife can handle 12ga recoil.
I don't consider firearms deterrents, because I don't display them for everyone in the world to see. They are for defense of life and limb; I'd rather have things stolen while I'm not home than risk a direct confrontation with a thief or thieves...but even better if they never want to steal from my home in the first place, because there are better, softer targets elsewhere.
I'm in a similar boat. Former-Army, shot at but never had a chance to shoot back (not necessarily a complaint), grew up playing the types of games which others claim make people violent.
I believe we ought to sweat & bleed in training to avoid it on the battlefield. Better to take some lumps at home doing combat maneuvers rather than fucking it up in theater and getting yourself or others killed. The "peace through superior firepower" motto sounds a bit like war-trumpeting, but it is generally how I view foreign policy and conflicts. Don't look for a fight, but be damned sure you're ready for one at a moment's notice and always have better training & equipment than your adversaries.
I'm not a violent person at all. I'd go out of my way to avoid a physical altercation, but if something is inevitable or already going down, then I'll bring as much force as necessary to end it as quickly as possible. If that means lethal force or simply restraining someone, then whatever it takes.
Personally, I've found the answer to hairyfeet's question is actually the reverse. I've found that shooting has made me a better gamer where FPSes are concerned. As an example, pulling up the 1911 iron sights in Modern Warfare feels extremely familiar; I own a similar 1911 so it is natural. I also have a better understanding of strategy and tactics, "trigger control" even if it is translated to a mouse-click, cover and maneuvering, etc.
So... given they know that violent media is the cause, they then study it "scientifically", and jump up an down when they produce results that -- lo and behold -- validate their preconceptions.
Indeed. If you look for something hard enough, you're bound to find it.